Knowledge is an ocean and a few drops just aren’t enough. -Unknown

Should you not gain your wants, my soul, then be not grieved;
But hasten to that banquet which your Lord’s bequeathed.
And when a thing for which you ask is slow to come,
Then know that often through delay are gifts received.
Find solace in privation and respect its due,
For only by contentment is the heart relieved.
And know that when the trials of life have rendered you
Despairing of all hope, and of all joy bereaved,
Then shake yourself and rouse yourself from heedlessness,
And make pure hope a meadow that you never leave.
Your Maker’s gifts take subtle and uncounted forms.
How fine the fabric of the world His hands have weaved.
The journey done, they came to the water of life,
And all the caravan drank deep, their thirst relieved.
Far be it from the host to leave them thirsty there,
His spring pours forth all generosity received.
My Lord, my trust in all Your purposes is strong,
That trust is now my shield; I’m safe, and undeceived.
All those who hope for grace from You will feel Your rain;
Too generous are You to leave my branch unleaved.
May blessings rest upon the loved one, Muhammad {pbuh} ,
Who’s been my means to high degrees since I believed.
He is my fortress and my handhold, so my soul,
Hold fast, and travel to a joy still unconceived.

– Ali bin Husayn al-Habshi (translated by Abdal Hakim Murad)

A beautiful recitation of the poem during Habib Umar’s Tour in Toronto:

—-> Note: Any comments are just thoughts that went through my head and definitely not a qualified commentary. And some of this goes way beyond the superficial first glance and really makes you ponder. SubhanAllah.

1. Activism will only succeed when it remembers that history is in good hands.

–> So true! History is something that has happened in the past. We cannot alter it not solely rely on it to propel us forward. Allah has decreed what has happened and the status of a people will not change until they change themselves. We have a great legacy and of course there are periods in time where people will criticize the Muslims. But we should not make the same mistakes that others did, nor can we dwell on them. We must move forward and create new projects and endeavors to build on that history and not depend solely on the acts of our predecessors.

2 We must not overestimate the calamities of our age. A misplaced rigorism is less dangerous than an improper liberalism.

3. This sin of the Muslim world: menefregismo.

4. In senescence, religions have two possibilities: Alzheimers (the amnesiac option of the secular elites) and manic-depressive (the false Salafism).

5. Aid for ‘moderate’ Middle Eastern regimes is meals on wheels, because it does not expect to rejuvenate.

6. Postmodernism is Jahiliyya. Each tribe has its own story.

7. The modern West shows that without a Shari‘a there can only be scattered hunafa’.

8. ‘There is no God at all, and Atatürk is His prophet.”

—> Secularism is often seen as man’s created religion. Often it abandons the existence of God or at least takes a more Deist perspective. Regardless, Ataturk was the father of secularism in Turkey. He spread the outward abandonment of Islam at least in terms of banning hijabs and now we can see how deep seated this secularism is with the controversy brewing in Turkey right now.

9. The Umma without its Law is like a man without his Prayer.

10. The East is content without form; the West is form without content.

"We have devoted our lives to seeking knowledge of the heart; knowledge that will carry us to our soul’s destination. Your minds have limits but not your hearts, for they are receptacles of endless capacity. But, you must open your hearts to this knowledge, as nothing may pass through what is closed.”

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.- Isaac Asimov